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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MORNING LIGHTS AND 
EVENING SHADOWS 



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BY 



ROSSITER JOHNSON 




THE MARION PRESS 

Jamaica Queensborough New-York 

1902 



tMe library Of 

CONGRESS, 
Two Cop.es Received 

DEC, 19 190? 

OodvbiqhT ENTRY 

CLASS Ctx KXa. No. 
COPY A. 






Copyright, 1902, by Rossiter Johnson. 



Contents* 

PAGE 

A Song for a New Year .... 9 

The Viftory ..... 12 

Faith's Surrender . . . . 15 

The Dark Herald . . . . . 19 

Brevi Finietur . . . . . .21 

Opportunity . . . . . 23 

On the Cliff 26 

A Photograph . . . . . 29 

On the Stairs ...... 30 

Dedication . . . . . . 32 

A Love- Letter Without a Lady . . .34 

The Indian Trail . . . . . 37 

Laurence ...... 40 

Evelyn ...... 43 

A Soldier Poet 46 

A Woman of the War .... 48 

The Rivals . . . . . 53 

Three Women . . . . . 59 
William Hamilton Gibson . . . .61 

Cushing ...... 62 



6 Contents. 

My Ship 68 

When Foolish Words .... 70 

Autumn . . . . . . 71 

A Boy's Poem . . . . . 72 

All Partners . . . . . .74 

Thanksgiving . . . . . 77 

The Land of Noddy . . . .80 

A Rhyme of the Rain . . . . 82 

An Indian Love-Song . . . .89 

Nine-nine in the Shade . . . . 91 

The Gate of Tears . . . . 93 

On the Beach at Amagansett ... 99 

At Fifty-two . . . . . . .102 

Salvage : 

The Stage Ride . . . . 104 

New and Old . . . . .106 

Youth and Verse . . . . 107 

Great and Small . . . . .108 

Civil War . . . . . 109 

A Farewell . . . . . .111 



MORNING LIGHTS AND 
EVENING SHADOWS 



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a Hwng; for a JQeto Pear* 

The sea sings the song of the ages, 

The mountain stands mutely sublime, 
While the blank of Eternity's pages 

Is filled by the fingers of Time. 
But Man robs the sea of its wonder, 

Making syllabled speech of its roar ; 
He rendeth the mountain asunder, 

And rolleth his wheels through its core ; 
He delveth deep down for earth's treasure, 

And every locked secret unbars : 
He scanneth the heavens at pleasure, 

And writeth his name on the stars. 

But purpose is weaker than passion, 
And patience is dearer than blood ; 

And his face groweth withered and ashen, 
Ere he findeth and graspeth the good. 



io Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

He pursueth the phantom of beauty, 

Or peddleth his valor for pelf, 
Till the iron of merciless Duty 

Hath cloven the armor of self. 
He soweth the life of his brother, 

He wasteth the half of his soul ; 
The harvest is reaped by another, 

And Death dippeth deep for his toll. 

So the march of triumphal procession, 

That Science were fain to begin, 
Is hindered with painful digression 

Of ignorance, folly, and sin. 
Through mazes of needless confusion 

The story of Freedom must bend, 
And the grandest and simplest conclusion 

Go stumbling along to its end. 
Yet a year does not slide o'er the border 

Of time but some progress it shows ; 
And a lustrum proves prescience and order : 

Thus the drama creeps on to its close. 

If the blood that was weaker than water 
Too. thinly and sluggishly ran, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 1 1 

Lo ! the wine of the vintage of slaughter 

Giveth strength to the sinews of Man. 
And the shout of a lusty young nation 

Now greets his gray brothers with glee ; 
And the swell of its ringing vibration 

Sweeps over the isles of the sea ; 
While Liberty looks for a morrow 

That promiseth joyous increase, 
As waneth her midnight of sorrow 

And waxeth her morning of peace. 



i 2 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



When Man, in his Maker's image, came 
To be the lord of the new-made earth, 

To conquer its forests, its beasts to tame, 

To gather its treasures and know their worth, 

All readily granted his power and place, 

Save the Ocean, the Mountain, and Time, and 
Space ; 

And these four sneered at his puny frame, 
And made of his lordship a theme for mirth. 

Whole ages passed while his flocks he tended, 
And delved and dreamed, as the years went by, 

Till there came an age when his genius splendid 
Had bridged the rivers, and sailed the sky, 

And raised the dome that defied the storm, 

And mastered the beauties of color and form ; 

But his power was lost, his dominion ended, 

Where Time, Space, Mountain, or Sea was nigh. 

The Mountains rose in their grim inertness 
Between the peoples, and made them strange, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. I 3 

Save as in moments of pride or pertness 

They climbed the ridge of their native range, 

And, looking down on the tribe below, 

Saw nothing there but a deadly foe, 

Heard only a war-cry, long and shrill, 
In echoes leaping from hill to hill. 



The Ocean rolled in its mighty splendor, 

Washing the slowly wasting shore, 
And the voices of nations, fierce or tender, 

Lost themselves in its endless roar. 
With frail ships launched on its treacherous surge, 
And sad eyes fixed on its far blue verge, 
Man's hold of life seemed brittle and slender, 

And the Sea his master for evermore. 

And Space and Time brought their huge dimensions 
To separate man from his brother man, 

And sowed between them a thousand dissensions, 
That ripened in hatred and caste and clan. 

So Sea and Mountain and Time and Space 

Laughed again in his lordship's face, 

And bade him blush for his weak inventions 
And the narrow round his achievements ran. 



f Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

But one morning he made him a slender wire, 

As an artist's vision took life and form, 
While he drew from heaven the strange fierce fire 
That reddens the edge of the midnight storm ; 
And he carried it over the Mountain's crest, 
And dropped it into the Ocean's breast ; 
And Science proclaimed, from shore to shore, 
That Time and Space ruled man no more. 

Then the brotherhood lost on Shinar's plain 
Came back to the peoples of earth again. 



" Be one 
"Be one 
"Be one 
"Be one 



' sighed the Mountain, and shrank away. 
" murmured Ocean, in dashes of spray. 
" said Space, "I forbid no more." 
" echoed Time, "till my years are o'er." 
"We are one ! " said the nations, as hand met hand 
In a thrill electric from land to land. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. i 5 



iFattf)'* HmrtenUer* 

As vanquished years behind me glide, 

Trailing the banner of their boasts, 
Lo ! step for step and stride for stride, 

Beside me walk their silent ghosts. 
Each, while a narrow moment burned, 

The breath of full existence shared ; 
Then mortal Substance backward turned, 

Immortal Shadow onward fared. 

Between the doing and the dreaming, 
My slack hands fall ; 

Between the being and the seeming, 
My senses pall ; 

And swiftly through life's broken arches 

Care with his troop triumphant marches, 
And claims me thrall. 

There ever, 'mid the moving throng 
Whose mocking footfalls echo mine, 

Poor widowed Memory leads along 
Her children in a lengthened line. 



1 6 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

What time the head in silence hung, 
I knew them by that voiceless sign — 

Their tender forms forever young, 
Their weary eyes as old as mine. 

Between retreating and encroaching 

Their footprints lie ; 
Between beseeching and reproaching 

Their voices die ; 
And every scheme of better living 
They mar with blotches of misgiving, 

And thrust it by. 

The one foul word in record fair 

Stands out the foremost on the page, 
Till all of good or glory there 

Seems chance-achieved or shrunk with age ; 
The present help of manly strength, 

The royal sway of manly wiH, 
However bold, go down at length 

Before some iron-visored ill. 

Betwixt old baulk and new beginning, 
How Courage quails ! 

'Twixt white intent and stain of sinning, 
How Virtue fails ! 






Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 1 7 

And backward on her own path turning, 
Where Hazard's lurid torch is burning, 
How Reason pales ! 

From self the subtle motive spun, 

Through self the generous purpose burns, 
For self the martyr deed is done, 

And round to self at last returns 
The boon for others dearly bought, 

The far result of sacrifice, 
That triumphs in completed thought, 

Or lights a gleam in dying eyes. 

Betwixt grim fact and sad surmising, 

Joys merge in pain ; 
'Twixt love of self and self-despising, 

What grounds remain 
Where Hope is lord and Fear is vassal, 
Where calm Content may build her castle, 

Nor build in vain ? 

Though Truth be steadfast as the hills 

Whose flinty faces mock at Time, 
What boots it, if no living rills 

Roll downward from that steep sublime ? 

3 



[ 8 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

I could not hold its airy height, 

Though I should tread the narrow track, 
While trembling foot and failing sight 

Conspire too well to hurl me back. 

Between the climbing and the creeping, 
There's blood and bruise ; 

Between the laughing and the weeping, 
The soul may lose 

Her grasp of all that makes the morrow 

Seem other than a greener sorrow, 
With fresher dews. 






Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 19 



€&e Darft peralDu 

The world is beautiful, and life is sweet, 

And home sufficient heaven, to those that love. 
Yet something happier were they if the feet 

Of the Dark Herald, like the spheres above, 
Moved in a steadfast orbit and came round 

In some determined cycle to their door, 
Commanding all together to give ground 

For the new mortals waiting off the shore. 

Then might they do their work, and live their life, 

And love their loves, and go in calm content, 
Taking the hands of brother, sister, wife, 

For the long journey and its far event. 
Then might they know with not a shade of doubt — 

What now they argue from a fear of sin — 
That He who made the mighty world without 

Sustains and loves the weakest soul therein. 

But who can see the brightest and the best 

Snatched from the sight of those that need them 
here, 



zo Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

See active life become eternal rest, 

See parents weeping o'er their children's bier, 
See age a burden and see youth grow pale, 

See what the weak and innocent endure — 
Nor feel that laws of Nature somehow fail 

Just where their working should be most secure ? 






Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 2 1 



3Bretoi JFinietttr* 

I sometimes think my life has run 
Beyond the measure of its worth, 

And wonder when will rise the sun, 
The last that I shall see on earth. 

Again, life's brevity appears 
The only marplot ; and I plan 
How all might round to right, if man 

Could only live some hundred years. 

But evermore this mournful thread 

Through all reflection's fabric runs: 
That if this dear one were not dead, 

Were that one still the same as once, 
Had these a few more years been spared, 
And all my later fortune shared, 
Contented then I had not cared 

For what might lie beyond the suns ; 

That loss and blunders manifold, 

Which mar our brief existence here, 



22 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

Were not its knell so quickly tolled, 

Might be redeemed some future year ; 
Then he who faltered at the start 
And failed, were not the course so short, 
Might, by some latent force or art, 

Have won the race, the prize, the cheer. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 23 



Opportunity* 

Not idly dreaming of Thy heaven, 

Nor longing for some vague delight, 
With scorn of such as time has given, 

Nor blind to glories of the night 
With watching for the break of dawn, 
Nor mourning good forever gone, 
Far from my fellow men withdrawn, 
Would I Thy mercies, Lord, requite. 

The great to-come is Thine alone ; 

The past, we know not whose it is ; 
Its days and deeds are all its own, 

And mine, mayhap, its miseries. 
But though all things beyond may be 
Obscured in hazy drapery, 
One little circle round is free 

From darkness, doubt, and mysteries. 

That little circle, now and here, 
Moves onward with me as I go ; 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

That hazy curtain hanging near 

Rolls backward with continual flow : 
And still my growing pathway glides 
Where some divine impulsion guides, 
And still Thy firmament abides, 

And through the mist its beacons glow. 



The measure of Thy work is more 

Than I may ever hope to span 
With compass of the little lore 

That pufFs the mind of puny man. 
I only know that round my feet 
Lie shreds of purpose incomplete, 
Which I must help to form and meet, 
Revealing Thy eternal plan. 

I only know that in my heart 

Somehow there must be something good ; 
Thou wouldst not set my task apart 

And give me stubble, hay, and wood, 
And these alone, that my desire 
Might build in mockery a pyre 
But meant for the consuming fire. 

Where otherwise some hope had stood. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 25 

Though, fair ambition's banner furled, 

And every outlook growing less, 
I elbow through a crowded world, 

With daily toil arid strife and stress, 
If eye and heart to heaven be true, 
Some bit of sky I still may view, 
And from that little arc of blue 

The sphere of Thy creation guess. 



26 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



@n tfit Cliff* 

"See where the crest of the long promontory, 

Decked by October in crimson and brown, 
Lies like the scene of some fairyland story, 

Over the sands to the deep sloping down. 
See the white mist on the hidden horizon 

Hang like the folds of the curtain of fate. 
See where yon shadow the green water flies on, 

Cast from a cloud for the conclave too late. 

"See the small ripples in curving ranks chasing 

Every light breeze running out from the shore, 
Gleeful as children when merrily racing, 

Hands interlocked, o'er a wide meadow floor. 
See round the pier how the tossing wave sparkles, 

Bright as the hope in a love-lighted breast. 
See the one sail in the sunlight that darkles, 

Laboring home from the lands of the west. 

"See the low surf where it restlessly tumbles, 
Swiftly advancing, and then in retreat. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 27 

See how the tall cliff yields slowly and crumbles, 
Sliding away to the gulfs at our feet. 

Sure is thy victory, emblem of weakness ; 
Certain thine overthrow, ponderous wall. 

Brittle is sternness, but mighty is meekness — 
O wave that will conquer ! O cliff that must 
fall!" 



"Ah lady, how deep is this truth of your teaching ! 
All that delights and inthralls you I see ; 
But little you dream of the meaning far-reaching, 
Yea, more than you meant them, your words 
have for me. 
Light run my fancies that once were too sober ; 

All the fair land of the future lies spread 
Brightly before me, in hues of October ; 

Homeward, full-laden, my ship turns her head. 

"Dimly across them falls fate's mystic curtain: 
If but thy ringers would draw it away, 
Making the fanciful turn to the certain, 

Then would the sounds and the sights of to-day 



28 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

Ring like the strains of a ballad pathetic, 

Heard when the voice of the singer is dumb ; 

Glow like the great words on pages prophetic, 
Read when the fingers that wrote them are numb. 

"Into the depths of thy dreamy eyes peering, 
Watching thy lips for some shadowy sign, 
Trembling in doubt betwixt hoping and fearing, 
Stands my poor soul, and appeals unto thine. 
Barren as sea-sand is every ambition, 

Pride but the foam in the breaker concealed ; 
Fame is a shadow, and wealth a derision — 
O love that will triumph ! O life that must 
yield!" 









Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 29 



31 IJ&otograp!)* 

A flash of daylight on a darkened plate — 

And lip and brow and eye 
Some portion of their inmost thought relate 

In tones that do not die. 

The instant message of a single look, 

With love and hope alight, 
Is like the broad page of an open book 

To him who reads aright. 

Yet sometimes, though the picture be ablaze 
With life's most precious meed, 

The careless handle, and the many gaze, 
But only one can read. 



30 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



@n tj)e Stairs* 

Swift tho' the foot-fall of midnight advances, 

Let us linger a while on the stairs- — 
Nothing to witness our words and our glances 

But the astral that over us flares. 
Ah, how in contrast with gloomy November 

The gleam of their brilliance appears ! 
You may forget them, but I shall remember — 

Remember these glances for years. 

Press but the fingers for needless assurance, 

Touch the lips for a token of truth — 
Ah, how it girds for heroic endurance 

The pitiful weakness of youth ! 
So rises purpose that never shall slumber, 

So rings its brave song in my ears ; 
You may forget them, but I must remember — 

Remember these moments for years. 

What tho' the spirit be robbed of its buoyance, 
Still wrapped in the cumbersome clay ? 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 3 1 

What tho* the wear of incessant annoyance 

Shall fritter endeavor away, 
Turn the fair June into dull-eyed December, 

Drown exultation in tears ? 
You may forget them, but I shall remember — 

Remember these moments for years. 

Even as now I pass out of the portal 

To the slumberous silence of night, 
So if Remembrance, immured but immortal, 

From the dwelling of earth take her flight, 
Then, when the ashes of life's falling ember 

Are lighted with flickering fears, 
You may forget them, while I shall remember 

These moments surviving the years. 



32 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



Dedication* 

If that indeed were fa£t, which seems 

A pleasant universal fiction, 
That's daily born of youthful dreams, 

Nor dies of daily contradiction — 

That every mortal has a mate, 

And counterparts go blindly groping 

To find perchance through fogs of fate 
The end of all their weary hoping, — 

I'd say : Whatever I have done 

To manhood's earnest work befitting, 

Be consecrate to her alone 

Who waits for me, though all unwitting ; 

Who puts the signs of pain away, 

Lest grief too soon her cheek should furrow ; 
Who beats temptation back to-day, 

That I may see some glad to-morrow ; 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 33 

Who dare not pluck a flower that grows 
Beyond the path God spreads before her, 

Nor ever thinks of passing those 
That bloom beside it to adore her ; 

Who strives to add a cubit yet 

By faith unto her moral stature — 
Dear soul ! — lest I should feel regret 

At finding less than mine her nature ; 

Whose hands train many a trailing vine 
That mine had rudely left to perish, 

And all its tendrils deftly twine 

In folds that failing years will cherish ; 

Whose steps will mark life's tune alway, 

Though mine have stumbled, failed, and blun- 
dered ; 

Whose spirit walks with mine to-day, 
However far our feet are sundered. 



34 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



a lobeiettet W\X\mX a iaUp* 

Is the new summer bursting as freshly as ever, 
Along the smooth margin of old Genesee, 

Where the trillium wakes with a lingering shiver 
Beneath the low boughs of the evergreen tree ? 

Creeps the trailing arbutus o'er hillock and hollow, 
Through leafage whose greenness and glory are fled ? 

Rises dawn with a flush of new glories to follow ? 
Comes the night with less terror and chill in its 
tread ? 

In the grottoes we know, are the sculptures of Winter 

Made ruin and rubbish, the sport of the Spring ? 

From the great rocky walls do they crumble and splinter, 

Whence newly-born rivulets saunter and sing ? 

i 

Has the last shrunken drift from the meadows departed, 
Like a stage-ghost at dawn, with the dust on its face ? 

O'er the long, grassy slopes have the cloud-shadows 
started, 
As in summers of old, their perpetual chase ? 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 35 

Do you wander as once under cliff and through tangle, 
By pools where cross-currents in dark eddies meet ? 

Or study the offers of crevice and angle 

That hold out temptations to hazardous feet ? 

It is long, long ago now — and longer in seeming — 
Since I stood with you by that river so fair. 

But its ripple or roar, as it runs through my dreaming, 
Has no meaning or music unless you are there. 

There's a love that comes forth at the bidding of 
beauty, 

And virtue, and goodness, 'twixt woman and man ; 
There's a love more allied to devotion and duty, 

That owes its existence to kindred and clan. 

There is also a love that no mystery darkens, 
No passion need fire, and no blindness defend, 

No whisper can hurt while suspiciousness hearkens, 
No envy distract, and no jealousy rend. 

It is born of the spirit that finds itself mated — 
Or soaring or mining — by one of its kind ; 

That can follow it far, or await it belated, 
Can lead it in freedom, or cheer it confined ; 



36 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

That feels how it labors, or triumphs, or struggles ; 

That sees what it aims at, and knows why it fails ; 
That peers at a glance through the gauzes and juggles 

That screen and succeed where no merit avails. 

No thrill marks its birth, and no rapture its presence ; 

But it grows in each fibre by circumstance tried, 
From boyhood to manhood through long juvenes- 
cence, — 

And such 'tis I send you from Merrimack's side. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 37 



In days agone, where rocky cliffs 
Rise far above the river's vale, 

There was a path of doubts and ifs — 
We called it then the Indian Trail. 

In ragged line, from top to base, 

O'er shelving crag and slippery shale, 

By brush and brier and jumping-place, 
Wound up and down the Indian Trail. 

No girl, though nimble as a fawn, 
No small-boy cautious as a snail, 

No dog, no mule, no man of brawn, 
Could safely tread that Indian Trail. 

Beyond the age of childish toy, 
Before the age of gun and sail, 

The fearless and elastic boy 

Alone could use the Indian Trail. 

'Twas like a great commencement day, 
Like change from little fish to whale, 



38 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

From tearful March to smiling May, 

When first we climbed the Indian Trail. 

I've threaded many a devious maze, 
And Alpine path without a rail, 

Yet never felt such tipsy craze 

As touched me on the Indian Trail. 

'Twas easy by the White Man's Path 
For all the lofty cliff" to scale ; 

But boys returned from river bath 
Preferred to take the Indian Trail. 

Our younger brothers, who'd insist 
Upon their rights of taggle-tail, 

Were shaken off" and never missed 

When once we reached the Indian Trail. 

And those who plundered orchard crop 
Regarded not the farmer's hail, 

But left him puzzled at the top, 

While they went down the Indian Trail. 

All this was years and years ago — 

To count them now would not avail — 

And every noble tree is low 

That shadowed then the Indian Trail. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 39 

The beetling cliff — ah, what a sin ! — 

Is full of vaults for beer and ale ; 
The rocks are stained like toper's chin, 

Where flourished once our Indian Trail. 

They've stripped off every bush and flower, 
From Vincent to Deep Hollow dale ; 

The charm is sunk, the memory sour — 
There is no more an Indian Trail. 

Far driven from our hunting-ground 
On breezy hill and billowy swale, 

Some wander still, but some have found 
The skyward end of Indian Trail. 

Dear boys ! it takes away my breath 
To think how youth and genius fail. 

Those grim pursuers, Time and Death, 
Are baffled by no Indian Trail. 

Life yields such comfort as it hath, 
But labor wears and custom stales; 

I plod all day the White Man's Path, 
And dream at night of Indian Trails. 



40 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



lattrence* 

He came in the glory of summer ; in the terror of 

summer he went : 
Like a blossom the breezes have wafted ; like a 

bough that the tempest has rent. 
His blue eyes unclosed in the morning, his brown 

eyes were darkened at morn ; 
And the durance of pain could not banish the beauty 

wherewith he was born. 
He came — can we ever forget it, while the years ■ 

of our pilgrimage roll ? — 
He came in thine anguish of body, he passed 'mid 

our anguish of soul. 

He brought us a pride and a pleasure, he left us a 

pathos of tears: 
A dream of impossible futures, a glimpse of uncalen- 

dared years. 
His voice was a sweet inspiration, his silence a sign 

from afar; 
He made us the heroes we were not, he left us the 

cowards we are. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 41 

For the moan of the heart follows after his clay, 

with perpetual dole, 
Forgetting the torture of body is lost in the triumph 

of soul. 



A man in the world of his cradle, a sage in his in- 
fantine lore, 

He was brave in the might of endurance, was pa- 
tient — and who can be more? 

He had learned to be shy of the stranger, to wel- 
come his mother's warm kiss, 

To trust in the arms of his father, — and who can 
be wiser than this ? 

The lifetime we thought lay before him, already 
was rounded and whole, 

In dainty completeness of body and wondrous per- 
fection of soul. 

The newness of love at his coming, the freshness 
of grief when he went, 

The pitiless pain of his absence, the effort at argued 
content, 

The dim eye forever retracing the few little foot- 
prints he made, 
6 



\ 2 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

The quick thought forever recalling the visions that 

never can fade, — 
For these but one comfort, one answer, in faith's 

or philosophy's roll : 
Came to us for a pure little body, went to God for 

a glorified soul. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 43 



If I could know 
That here about the place where last you played - 
Within this room, and yonder in the shade 

Of branches low — 
Your spirit lingered, I would never go, 
But evermore a hermit pace the round 
Of sunny paths across this garden ground, 

And o'er the fleckered lawn 
Whereon your little chariot was drawn, 

And round these lonely walls, 

Where no sound ever falls 
So pretty as your prattle or your crow, — 

If I could only know ! 

If I could know 
That to some distant clime or planet rare 

Sweet souls like thine repair, 
Where love's own fountains fail not as they flow,- 
Pd be a traveller, and would ever go, 
Day after day, along the selfsame road, 
Leaving behind this desolate abode, 



44 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

My head upon my pillow only lay 

To dream myself still farther on the way, 

Until at last I rest, 
Clasping my little daughter to my breast, ' 
Though half eternity were wasted so, — 

If I could only know ! 

If I could know 
That you a child with childlike ways remain, 
I'd. never wish to be a man again, 

But only try to grow 
As childlike, using all the idle toys 
That you and I have played with, till their noise 
Brought back the echoes of your merry laugh, 
When paper windmill whirled upon its staff, 
Or painted ball went rolling on the floor, 

Or puss peeped out behind the door, 

Or watch, held half in fear, 
With its mysterious pulses thrilled your ear : 
All manly occupation I'd forego, 

If I could only know ! 

If I could know 
That henceforth, in some pure eternal sphere, 
The little life that grew so swiftly here 

Would still expand and grow, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 45 

How should I strive against my wasting years, 
With toil from sun to sun, and midnight tears, 
To build my soul up to the height of yours, 

And catch the light that lures, 

The inspiration that impels, 

The strength that dwells, 
Beyond the bounds of earthly cares and fears, 

Beyond this bitter woe, — 

If I could only know ! 

Alas ! what do I know ? 
I know your world scarce compassed yonder stone — 

As little seems my own ! 
I know you never knew unhappiness — 

Would I could mourn the less ! 
I know you never saw death's darker side — 

The shore where we abide ! 
I know you never felt the nameless dread — 

Ah, but if mine were fled ! 
I know you never heard a lover's vow — 

And I'm your lover now ! 
I know no answer to my wail can come — 

Let me be dumb ! 



46 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



a Pointer JJoet* 

(Michael O'Connor, 18 37-1 8 62.) 

Where swell the songs thou shouldst have sung 

By peaceful rivers yet to flow ? 
Where bloom the smiles thy ready tongue 

Would call to lips that loved thee so ? 
On what far shore of being tossed 

Dost thou resume the genial stave, 
And strike again the lyre we lost 

By Rappahannock's troubled wave ? 

If that new world hath hill and stream, 

And breezy bank, and quiet dell, 
If forests murmur, waters gleam, 

And wayside flowers their story tell, 
Thy hand ere this has plucked the reed 

That wavered by the wooded shore, 
Its prisoned soul thy fingers freed, 

To float melodious evermore. 

So seems it to my musing mood, 
So runs it in my surer thought, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 47 

That much of beauty, more of good, 

For thee the rounded years have wrought ; 

That life will live, however blown 
Like vapor on the summer air ; 

That power perpetuates its own ; 
That silence here is music there. 



48 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

31 Ionian of tfje Wvc. 

(Margaret Augusta Peterson, 1841-1864. ) 

Through the sombre arch of that gateway tower 
Where my humblest townsman rides at last, 

You may spy the bells of a nodding flower, 
On a double mound that is thickly grassed. 

And between the spring and the summer-time, 

Or ever the lilac's bloom is shed, 
When they come with banners and wreaths and 
rhyme, 

To deck the tombs of the nation's dead, 

They find there a little flag in the grass, 
And fling a handful of roses down, 

And pause a moment before they pass 

To the Captain's grave with the gilded crown. 

But if perchance they seek to recall 

What name, what deeds, these honors declare, 
They cannot tell, they are silent all 

As the noiseless harebell nodding there. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 49 

She was tall, with an almost manly grace, 
And young, with strange wisdom for one so 
young, 

And fair, with more than a woman's face ; 
With dark, deep eyes, and a mirthful tongue. 

The poor and the fatherless knew her smile ; 

The friend in sorrow had seen her tears ; 
She had studied the ways of the rough world's guile, 

And read the romance of historic years. 

What she might have been in these times of ours, 
At once it is easy and hard to guess ; 

For always a riddle are half-used powers, 
And always a power is lovingness. 

But her fortunes fell upon evil days — 

If days are evil when evil dies — 
And she was not one who could stand at gaze 

Where the hopes of humanity fall and rise. 

Nor could she dance to the viol's tune, 

When the drum was throbbing throughout the 
land, 
Or dream in the light of the summer moon, 

While Treason was clenching his mailed hand. 
7 



50 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

Through the long gray hospital's corridor 
She journeyed many a mournful league, 

And her light foot fell on the oaken floor 
As if it never could know fatigue. 

She stood by the good old surgeon's side, 

And the sufferers smiled as they saw her stand ; 

She wrote, and the mothers marveled and cried 
At their darling soldiers' feminine hand. 

She was last in the ward when the lights burned low 
And Sleep called a truce to his foeman Pain ; 

At the midnight cry she was first to go, 
To bind up the bleeding wound again. 

For sometimes the wreck of a man would rise, 
Weird and gaunt in the watch-lamp's gleam, 

And tear away bandage and splints and ties, 
Fighting the battle all o'er in his dream. 

No wonder the youngest surgeon felt 

A charm in the presence of that brave soul, 

Through weary weeks, as she nightly knelt 

With the letter from home or the doctor's dole. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 5 1 

He heard her called, and he heard her blessed, 
With many a patriot's parting breath ; 

And ere his soul to itself confessed, 

Love leaped to life in those vigils of death. 

"O, fly to your home ! " came a whisper dread, 
"For now the pestilence walks by night." 

"The greater the need of me here," she said, 
And bared her arm for the lancet's bite. 

Was there death, green death, in the atmosphere ? 

Was the bright steel poisoned ? Who can tell ? 
Her weeping friends gathered beside her bier, 

And the clergyman told them all was well. 

Well — and alas that it should be so ! 

When a nation's debt reaches reckoning-day — 
Well for it to be able, but woe 

To the generation that's called to pay ! 

Forth from the long gray hospital came 

Every boy in blue who could walk the floor ; 

The sick and the wounded, the blind and lame, 
Formed two long files from her father's door. 



52 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

There was grief in many a manly breast, 
While men's tears fell as the coffin passed; 

And thus she went to the world of rest, 
Martial and maidenly unto the last. 

And that youngest surgeon, was he to blame ? — 
He held the lancet — Heaven only knows. 

No master; his heart broke all the same, 
And he laid him down, and never arose. 

So Death received, in his greedy hand, 
Two precious coins of the awful price 

That purchased freedom for this dear land — 

For master and bondman — yea, bought it twice. 

Such fates too often such women are for ! 

God grant the Republic a large increase, 
To match the heroes in time of war, 

And mother the children in time of peace. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 53 



' My friend, we're rivals now no more ; 

A silent suitor ranks us both — 

Her lord henceforth, however loath, 
Where mortal rivalries are o'er. 
If both her lovers had been one, 

And that one such as she had willed, 
And life rolled smooth from sun to sun, 

Till all her hopes had been fulfilled, 
She could not then have laid it by 

With more of graceful ease and trust 
Than when before an opening sky 

She dropped her veil of earthly dust. 
I knew myself, I now confess, 

To be unworthy of her hand ; 
But who for that e'er loves the less, 

Or finds his courage e'er unmanned? 
We all avow, we all believe, 

That she we love with reverent heart 
Could somehow many a fault retrieve, 

And something of herself impart. 



54 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

Her thoughts were such as none could reach 

But with a spirit like her own, 
And the low music of her speech 

Was soft as Nature's undertone. 
Where'er she came she brought a spell 

That hallowed all the commonplace ; 
Whene'er she went a silence fell, 

And something shadowed every face. 
I loved her with a wild delight, 

Unheedful of the Yes or No ; 
And in the balmy summer night 

A score of times I told her so. 
I told her how ambition kept 

An even step with love's reply, 
How half the powers of nature slept 

Until awakened by a sigh. 
She almost smiled, and all but wept, 

And gently put the subject by, — 
So gently that I knew my fate 

Was then determined past recall, 
And you, my rival, once my mate, 

Were throned and crowned the lord of all. 
But tell me — now that this has past — 

By what device, what novel art, 
You found the hidden clue at last 

And reached the portal of her heart. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 5 5 

For you and I, in days of youth, 
Went hand-in-hand in search of truth, 
And howsoever either fared 
The gain or loss was always shared. 
I could not sleep if you were sad, 
You could but smile if I was glad, 
And both in equal gauge retained 
The skill or knowledge either gained. 
I marveled you the happy way 
Had found, and I so far astray." 



"You marveled ? And I marveled too ; 
For I was sure she favored you. 
And when her prompt refusal rang 

The knell of hope, I could not fend 
Against the first, the only pang 

Of envy toward my boyhood friend. 
But that was neither deep nor strong. 
No unbefitting thought could long 
Remain a tenant of the soul 
Where love of her held high control. 
And silent then I took the place 
Of one who, distanced in the race, 
Still feels, however fortune fall, 
'Tis noble to have striven at all. 



56 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

I even began to take a pride 

In thinking he who by my side 

Had walked since childhood's earliest day 

So fair a prize had borne away ; 

Though I, too, wondered what availed 

To win your cause where mine had failed." 

"Perhaps, unknown to you and me, 
Another suitor, who surpassed 
All we could ever do or be, 
Had won the citadel at last." 

" No such appeared. I rather hold 

Our rival was no fleshly real, 
No living man of mortal mould, 

But her own perfect, fair ideal. 
What man could hope, in such a case ? 

Or who presume to emulate 
The visionary power and grace 

That such a fancy could create ? 
For her perception was the kind 
That, to no force of Nature blind, 
With equal vision seems to see 
What must, what might, what ought to be. 
And she could look through screen and scroll 
Of measured words and mannered vole, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 57 

To read the secrets of the soul. 
I felt this power when first we met — 
Felt, feared, but did not quite regret ; 
I felt it more when last we spoke, 
Before her thread of being broke ; 
Yet knew whate'er she read in me 
Was still wrapped up in secrecy." 

"Nay, souls like hers are never given 

To form ideals this side of heaven. 

They do not seek the name of wife 

And put a price-mark on their life, 

Saying: 'For thus much excellence, 

Thus much of manhood, thus much sense, 

Or wit, or goodness, I'm for sale ; 

And nothing less can e'er avail.' 

They step into this world of ours 

With all their sympathies and powers 

Spread to the full to catch the need 

Of fellow-men with generous deed, 

Or helpful thought, or word of cheer, 
Or smile that hope's renewal brings, 
Or such encouragement as springs 

From simply knowing they are here. 

They love as God loves, and they find 

Their heart's desire in all mankind. 



58 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

It seems as if their garment's hem 
Made sacred every path it swept, 
And everything that walked or crept 

Was happier for the sight of them. 

Their days glide on like living streams 
That find a pre-appointed way ; 

Their years are eras, and their dreams 
Substantial visions made to stay. 

There is no twilight in their age ; 
There is no darkness in their death ; 
They calmly yield their latest breath, 

And leave their lives a heritage. 

They do their work and take no toll ; 

Their gaze is not on any goal ; 

They never think of Honor's roll. 

And such was she — God rest her soul ! " 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 59 



Cj)ree Wmzn. 

Three women have I known the earth above — 
Three whom I thought superlatively good. 

One for her country died, and one for love, 
And one for motherhood. 

She who her country served was strong and bright - 
Almost a martyr's fire, a soldier's tread. 

Men seeing her were manlier for the sight, 
While women ceased from dread. 

She was the flower of earth whose broken heart 
Shed its dear life-drops upon barren ground — 

Forgave the blow, smiled and denied the smart, 
Died to conceal the wound. 

And she who gave her life for newer life 
Thought only of the little one's career — 

Hoped he was equal to the coming strife, 
And passed without a fear. 



60 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

Three women do I mourn the earth beneath, 
Who left the world forever in their debt. 

These three I chiefly grudge to thee, O Death, 
And never can forget. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 6 1 



William Hamilton (Sttootu 

(1850-1896.) 

Who Nature loves by Nature is beloved. 

She makes him gentle and she keeps him fair ; 
By woods and waters where her treasures are 
Within his hand she lays a hand ungloved. 
For him no stream is stopped, no mountain moved, 
No bird-song hushed, nor any branch made bare ; 
Useless the archer's shaft, the fowler's snare; 
Nor for his feet is any pathway grooved. 

So Gibson lived and wrote, and drew and dreamed, 

Whose sun too early dropped adown the west, 
Whose every day with purest visions teemed, 

That gave another' s day a fresher zest ; 
And like dear Nature's self he often seemed 
To draw no lines 'twixt labor, play, and rest. 



62 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 



(October 27, 1864.) 

He wrought a deed of darkness that shines in light 
eternal. 
His errand was destru&ion, but he builded for all 
time. 
Behooves his grateful countrymen to keep such memo- 
ries vernal, 
When they trace the lines of history or build the 
poet's rhyme. 



'Twas the fourth and final season of that struggle for 
existence 
When the great Republic trembled from circumfer- 
ence to core ; 
When a million men were battling, o'er a thousand 
miles of distance, 
And six hundred warships watching a thousand 
leagues of shore ; 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 63 

When the schoolhouse was a barrack, and the flag flew 
from the steeple ; 
When women paced the hospital, and old men ran 
the mill ; 
When every throb was quickened in the pulses of the 
people, 
While the sentries walked in silence and the guns 
were never still. 

Twas the summer of the Wilderness, that dark and 
bloody thicket — 
The summer of Cold Harbor, of Atlanta, of Mo- 
bile— 
When the shadows on the hearthstone seemed to hush 
the very cricket, 
And Doubt, with sombre presence, sat at every 
morning meal. 

At the little town of Plymouth, sixteen hundred under 
Wessells 
Blocked the port and held the post against nine thou- 
sand under Hoke — 
Held it with their hasty earthworks and their little 
wooden vessels, 
Till the iron monster Albemarle came down the 
Roanoke. 



64 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

All day long, in heavy columns, the determined foe 
assaulted ; 
All day long the stout defenders held the lines before 
the town. 
Though their dead were piled in winrows, yet the 
rebels never halted, 
Till they reached the very muzzles of the guns that 
struck them down. 

But the Albemarle, the monster with her prow beneath 
the water, 
And her sloping sides of iron, and two-hundred- 
pounder balls, 
Came steaming down the river, like a dragon to the 
slaughter, 
To enfilade the land-works and destroy the wooden 
walls. 

Down she came with steady purpose, of the shot and 
shell unheeding — 
Bows on, she struck the Southfield, and the South- 
field was a wreck ; 
Drove adrift the small Miami, with her crew all torn 
and bleeding, 
And her brave commander Flusser lying dead upon 
the deck. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 65 

And the other craft were scattered, and her guns were 
turned on Plymouth, 
Where Wessells* sixteen hundred thus far unmoved 
had stood. 
"Lo, the foe in front we baffle, but behind comes up 
Behemoth, 
And our little fleet has perished, and we are but flesh 
and blood." 

Thus fell Plymouth, and the Albemarle returned unto 
her mooring, 
And the British blockade-runner sailed once more 
the Roanoke — 
Carried rifles, carried powder, carried bullets death- 
insuring, — 
Until young Lieutenant Cushing to his ship's com- 
mander spoke : 

" Be it mine to meet the monster, with a score of trusty 
sailors, 
In the blackness of the midnight, with torpedo, 
launch, and fall ! 
River bed or wreath of glory, grim stockade with sul- 
len jailers, 
Wounds or blindness, fail or triumph, life or death, 
I risk it all ! 



66 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

" Only give me first a furlough, that my sisters and my 
mother 
I may visit once again, lest I shall see them never 
more.'' 
In his Northern home those dear ones hide the pang 
they can not smother, 
When he hastens back to duty on the Carolina shore. 

In a moonless, cloudy midnight Cushing's launch crept 
up the river — 
On her bowsprit a torpedo, in her hold a score of 
men. 
Every tongue was tied to silence, every nerve was on 
the quiver, 
Till the great hulk loomed above them, fast asleep 
within her den. 

Round about her for a rampart, slowly rising, creaking, 
falling, 
Swayed a raft of heavy logging with the motion of 
the tide. 
Cushing's little craft backed water, to the farther shore 
close hauling, 
Then with full steam darted forward, climbed the 
logs and reached her side. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 67 

"Who goes there ! " a flash of lightning leaping out 
from that dark cover, 
And a mammoth shot went crashing through the 
launch from stem to stern. 
But Cushing pulled his lanyard, and the Albemarle 
turned over, 
Like a giant on his deathbed when he gives the final 
girn. 

Eighteen men were killed or captured. One with 
Cushing swam the river, 
While the bullets pelted round them like the drops 
of coming rain — 
Swam the river, waded marshes, found a skiff in leafy 
cover, 
And when morning light was breaking reached the 
friendly fleet again. 

Thus he wrought the deed of darkness that shines in 
light eternal ! 
Thus his errand was destruction, when he builded 
for all time ! 
And we, his grateful countrymen, must keep such 
memories vernal, 
On History's heroic page and in the household 
rhyme. 



68 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



'Twas a gallant craft as ever sailed, 

And a marvelous merry crew she bore, 
When with canvas set and colors nailed 

I sent her out to a distant shore. 
I sent her out with a broad command 

To cruise at will through the Golden Isles, 
And bring me the product of every land 

That the soul delights or the sense beguiles. 

Tough are the timbers that compass her sides, 

And the lines are graceful that curve to her keel, 
And she leaves a foamy wake as she rides 

Secure with her steadiest man at the wheel. 
And that foamy wake in my dreams I see, 

Where whitens the wave for a thousand miles ; 
And the man at the wheel, unmindful of me, 

Is looking ahead for the Golden Isles. 

If waking I walk on the lonely shore, 

The foam of her furrow has melted away, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 69 

And I know that her sailors are merry no more, 
And her pilot I know must be withered and gray. 

But I still believe that her ensign burns, 

And on her brown canvas the sunlight smiles, 

As heavily laden she homeward turns, 
Or cruises yet 'mid the Golden Isles. 

And I never doubt she will surely come, 

Riding in on some happy tide, 
Strained and battered, but bearing home 

All that she sought o'er the ocean wide. 
And if Father Charon should pluck my sleeve 

And point to his skiff, with a laughing lip 
I'd do his bidding, and still believe 

I am only going to meet my ship. 



70 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



Wl>zn JFooltfiil) W0VH8. 

When foolish words have been forgot, 
And wiser memory reads between — 
Like some dear child's handwriting seen 
Half-blindly through an awkward blot — 
How clearly runs the legend then : 

There's something more in friendship's faith 
Than careless hand or vagrant breath 
Can make or break with tongue or pen. 

Yet foolish words will have their sway, 
Like smoke that wraps a generous fire 
And forces tears and rouses ire, 
And seem decisive for a day. 

I owe your memory heavy debt, 
My friend of many sacred years ; 
But would you double these arrears, 
Learn also sometimes to forget. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 71 



&tttttmtu 

What sudden splendor loads the falling year ! 
Like an old man whose honors come too late, 
Yet walks with regal step and brow sedate 
The purple pathway to his gilded bier. 
Sharp-tongued is Fate to utter words austere 
When her keen glance upon the dial-plate — 
Where neither bribe of love nor force of hate 
Can stop the shadow in its swift career — 
Catches the hour the mortal must not pass. 

So long as sorrow and distress endure, 
How calmly she denies our prayers, alas ! — 

Patience should be, where all things are secure — 
But grimly she delights to turn the glass 

Just when its sands run brightest and most pure. 



72 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



a 38op'a JJoenu 

Over the water and under the sky, 
Dreamily sailing, the clouds go by. 
Fleecy and white as a wild swan's breast, 
Darkened and dim as the mountain's crest, 
Reddened with flashes of sunset fire, 
Rolled into portents and effigies dire, 
Smiling or frowning for calm or for storm,— 
Whatever the color, whatever the form, — 
Daily and nightly the clouds go by, 
Over the water and under the sky. 

Over the water and under the sky, 
Steadily sailing, the ships go by. 
Bearing away on the Arclic breeze, 
Floating along to the tropic seas, 
Beating about at the stormy cape, 
Cleaving the fog like a ghostly shape, 
Carrying cargoes for peaceful trade, 
Bristling with guns for destruction made, — 
Sailing forever, the ships go by, 
Over the water and under the sky. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 73 

Over the earth and under the sky, 

The great procession of life goes by. 

Some in laughter and some in tears, 

Leaping in childhood or crippled in years, 

Toiling along under wearisome load, 

Galloping off on a flowery road, 

Hopeful and hopeless, the small and the great, 

The captive in chains and the monarch in state, — 

All in the endless procession go by, 

Over the landscape and under the sky. 

Over the landscape and under the sky, 
Dreamily roving, our souls go by. 
Seeking the wonders of every clime, 
Reading the tales of a far-away time, 
Marching where thousands keep step to the drum, 
Brooding in solitude sightless and dumb, 
Taking the world at the worst or the best, 
Willing to labor and careless of rest, 
If eternity finds us, when life's gone by, 
Under the daisies and over the sky. 



74 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 



ail partners 

(These verses, which refer to the execution of President Gar- 
field's assassin, were published originally in the New York Sun, 
June 30, 1882. That which they foretold came to pass in Sep- 
tember, 1 90 1, and was the occasion of the lines that follow.) 

Yes, hang him, of course ! He deserves to rise 
Where his heels may dangle o'er Hainan's head. 
At least we shall have one scoundrel the less, 
Conveniently crazed in his fiendishness, 
To walk our streets in an innocent guise, 
With his hidden pistol and stealthy tread. 

But when we have hanged him, what comes then ? 
Had he any confederates ? Let us see ! 
For the law is imperfect and lame at best, 
And censure's weight should be made to rest 
On as many as possible, women or men, 

Who have joined in breaking its just decree. . 

When a youth the Ephesian temple fired, 

That his name, as he said, might live thro' time, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 75 

'Twas decreed that it never be written or 

spoken — 
A law by the chroniclers quickly broken, 
Who've given him all that he desired, 
And offered his chosen reward for crime. 

Thus you, the historians, you are to blame. 
You offered this fellow a heavy bribe : 
If he'd only compass a shameful deed, 
A sickening sorrow to all who read, 
You'd give him something as good as fame 
To any one of his vulgar tribe. 

Then you, the reporters, hungry for news, 
And nibbling at nothings for printed prate, 

You've dosed us to death with his nauseous name, 
With how he looks, and whence he came, 
And what he drinks, and how he chews, 
Till the simple reader thinks him great. 

And we who have read are guilty beside : 
To be curious hold we a sacred right, 

As we smother a fainting man in the street, 
Or run to evil with hurrying feet, 
Making a crowd where the felons may hide, 
And balking justice to gratify sight. 



J 6 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

The quack who has striven the law to impede, 
The garrulous parson to decency blind, 

Every fool who has asked for his autograph, 
Or greeted his jests with a brutal laugh, 
Is an accessory after the deed, 

And before the next we shall have of its kind. 

When a few more years bring another such blow, 
And the head of the nation lies in state, 

While our streets with the emblems of mourning 

are filled, 
And door-posts are darkened and songs are stilled, 
While we follow the funeral, sad and slow, 

We shall think of these things, God help us ! too 
late. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. jj 



(1901.) 

In the freshness of our sorrow, 

In the darkness of our grief, 
With a loss that no to-morrow 

Can repair or give relief, — 
With a cloud upon our history 

Such as fades not in the years, 
And the burden of a mystery 

That forever forces tears, — 
How shall any heart be grateful 

As becomes this festal day, 
With the sinful and the hateful 

Driving happy thoughts away ? 
With the manhood held so proudly, 

That grew up through fateful times, 
And the faith that spoke so loudly 

In orations and in rhymes, 
There was still a viper crawling 

Through the garden we had made, 
And the stroke of fate was falling 

When our guards were least afraid. 



y 8 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

That the nation's will is thwarted 

By the vilest of the vile, 
And the worst with best consorted, 

Do we render thanks the while ? 

Not by these, which are but outward 

Afts and feelings of the hour, 
Must our thoughts be driven doubtward 

And our faith resign its power. 
We give thanks that evil forces, 

Malice-laden, are so small, 
That the law's majestic courses 

Falter not, whate'er befall. 
We give thanks that he who perished 

On that sunny autumn day 
Left a memory to be cherished 

Till the earth shall pass away ; 
That his dying, as his living, 

Was a lesson for our youth, 
With no flaw, and no misgiving 

Of the grace and force of truth ; 
Of the might of earnest manhood, 

Tense in war and calm in peace, 
To unite our wondrous country 

And its honor to increase. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 79 

Then from high or lowly stations, 

From the East unto the West, 
When we think of those our martyrs 

Who have passed unto their rest, 
Let us thank the God of Nations 

That we are so richly blest. 



8o Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



SCfje ianU of jQolrtjp* 

A Lullaby. 

Put away the bauble and the bib ! 
Smooth out the pillow in the crib ! 
Softly on the down 
Lay the baby's crown, 
Warm around its feet 
Tuck the little sheet, — 
Snug as a pea in a pod ! 

With a yawn and a gape, 
And a dreamy little nap, 
We will go, we will go, 
To the Landy-andy-pandy 
Of Noddy-oddy-poddy, 
To the Landy-andy-pand 
Of Noddy-pod. 

There in the Shadow- Maker's tent, 
After the twilight's soft descent, 
We'll lie down to dreams 
Of milk in flowing streams ; 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 8 1 

And the Shadow- Maker's baby- 
Will lie down with us, may be, 
On the soft mossy pillow of the sod. 
In a drowse and a doze, 
All asleep from head to toes, 
We will lie, we will lie, 
In the Landy-andy-pandy 

Of Noddy-oddy-poddy, 
In the Landy-andy-pand 
Of Noddy-pod. 

Then when the morning breaks, 
Then when the robin wakes, 

We'll leave the drowsy dreams, 
And the twinkling starry gleams, 
We'll leave the little tent, 
And the wonders in it pent, 
To return to our own native sod. 
With a hop and a skip, 
And a jump and a flip, 

We will come, we will come, 
From the Landy-andy-pandy 

Of Noddy-oddy-poddy, 
From the Landy-andy-pand 
Of Noddy-pod. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows 



31 Ej)j>me of tjje Kaitu 

Like a blotch upon a beauty 

Comes a cloud across the sky ; 
Like an unrelenting duty 

Fall the raindrops from on high. 
Like death upon a holiday, 

Like sleigh-ride upon wheels, 
Like jilting on a jolly day, 

Like medicine at meals, 
Sets in a storm preposterous, 

Of every plan the bane : 
Now sullen and now boisterous, 
Malicious, mean, or roisterous, 
But always moist and moisture-ous, 

Forever on the gain, 

And never on the wane, 
Bringing sudden consternation, 
And a long-drawn botheration, 
To the men upon the house-top, and the cattle in the 

plain. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 83 

How it pours, pours, pours, 

In a never-ending sheet ! 
How it drives beneath the doors ! 

How it soaks the passer's feet ! 
How it rattles on the shutter ! 

How it rumples up the lawn ! 
How 'twill sigh, and moan, and mutter, 

From darkness until dawn ! — 
Making human life a burden, 

Making joy a flimsy wile, 
Making bondage seem a guerdon 
In the rainless fields of Egypt, by the clever river Nile. 
Yet how pleasantly the rain, 
With its delicate refrain, 
May sing away the sultriness of summer day or night ! 
Set the drooping grass a-springing, 
And the robin's throat a-ringing, 
Fill the meadow-lands with verdure, and the hills with 

glistening light ! 
Or in April, fickle-hearted, 
Ere the chill has quite departed, 
That the frosts, and the snows, and the howling winds 

have brought, 
When all the signs of gladness 
Take a sombre tinge of sadness, 



84 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

For days and deeds that come no more, and dreams 
that fell to nought ! 

Then, in half unwelcome leisure 

'Tis a sort of solemn pleasure 

To sit beside the ingle, 

Or to lie beneath the shingle, 
And listen to the patter of the rain, rain, rain, 

To the drip, drip, drip, 

And the patter, patter, patter, 
On the roof, and the shutter, and the pane. 

But whether night or day-time, 
In harvest-time or play-time, 
And whether pour or patter, 
The early rain or latter 
Reigns over human purpose, and plays with human 

fears — 
Sets mighty armies shouting, 
Sends little Cupid pouting, 
Turns trusting into doubting. 

And triumph into tears. 

O ! sadly I remember 
One treacherous September, 
When the autumn equinoftial came a week or more 
too soon. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 85 

I had started with a cousin 

For the church, among a dozen 

Maids and matrons who were airing 

The fall styles, and gayly wearing 
The very newest, sweetest thing in bonnets 'neath the 
Moon. 

And midway of the journey, 

Like a thousand knights in tourney, 
The leveled lances of the rain drove furious at our 
breast ; 

And the fall styles fell and wilted, 

On the dames so proudly kilted, 
And by sudden transformation worse than worst be- 
came the best. 

Though I now am sere and yellow, 

I was then a valiant fellow, 
And esteemed it more a joy to serve the ladies than to 
live. 

Imagine, then, my feelings, 

'Mid the shrinkings and the squealings, 
When my water-proof umbrella proved a sieve, sieve, 

sieve ! 
When my shiny new umbrella proved a sieve ! 

What a sorry lot of mortals 

Sat within the sacred portals, 



86 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

In their mermaid millinery looking sad, sad, sad ! 
Nothing dry except the sermon, 
Which discoursed on dews of Hermon 
And the streams that, saith the Scripture, do make 
glad, glad, glad ! 
So the preacher praised the waters 
To those mothers, wives, and daughters, 
Every dripping, draggled one of whom was mad, mad, 
mad ! 
And my bright and handsome cousin — 
Sweetest girl among the dozen, 
Or among a dozen dozen you might meet along the 
way, 
Then a hopeful, sprightly maiden, 
Full of fancies laughter-laden, 
Dates the ruin of her chances from that rainy Sabbath 
day. 
She had spent her last round dollar 
For the bonnet, gloves, and collar 
That should have proved effective on the smart young 
pulpiteer ; 
But he rode home in the carriage 
Of her rival, and their marriage 
Was solemnized (my cousin's word) in less than half 
a year. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 87 

But gladly I remember 

One crimson-hued September, 
When we strayed along the hedges and within the gor- 
geous wold ; 

A merry autumn party 

Of men and maidens hearty, 
Rejoicing in the foliage of scarlet and of gold. 

We saw in lessening distance 

The fair things of existence ; 

And ere we thought of turning, 

Or heeded sign of warning, 
We heard upon the fallen leaves the footsteps of the 
rain. 

Away went rules conventional ! 

And I, with haste intentional, 
Just clapped my good old broad-brim on the head of 
Annie Trayne. 

That extemporized umbrella 

Threw cold water on a fellow 
Who was courting, in a lazy sort of way, Miss Annie 
Trayne ; 

While it made me quite a gallant, 

And a fine young man of talent, 
In the eyes and estimation of the beauteous Annie 
Trayne. 



88 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

In the dreamy summer haze 

Of my far-off boyish days, 
I had chased the luring butterfly across the grassy plain, 

But I never threw my hat 

O'er a prize so fair as that 
When it sheltered, caught, and gave me the lovely 
Annie Trayne. 
. And I've blessed that gentle rain 

Again and yet again, 
For the flowers it set blooming in my life : 

For the crimson and the gold 

That adorn the little fold 
Where I find an autumn shelter with my wife. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 89 



3tn Snfctan iobe^ang* 

From his ambush in thy shadowy eyes, Love sped a 

shaft at mine ; 
'T was feathered with a shining tress, and barbed with 

a smile divine. 
My heart is all a-quiver ; but hear me while I sing — 
O, let me be thy beau, and I will never snap the 

string ! 

Then clad in noiseless moccasins the feet of the years 

shall fall ; 
For I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp 

us all. 

Not with the glittering wampum have I come thy 

smiles to woo ; 
But to offer a cabin passage down life's river in my 

canoe ; 
And to beguile the voyage, if thou wilt come aboard, 
Till sunset fire the waters the fire-water shall be poured, 



90 Morning Lights and Eveni?ig Shadows. 

While clad in softest moccasins the feet of the years 

shall fall ; 
And I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp 

us all. 

My pipe of peace thy frosty scorn has shattered, stem 

and bowl ; 
But a thousand thongs from thy dear hide are knotted 

round my soul. 
Safe from the swoop of tomahawk my dove shall ever 

be ; 
And if Famine stare us in the face, I'll jerk my heart 

for thee. 

So, clad in noiseless moccasins the feet of the years 

shall fall ; 
And I will cherish thee, my love, till Time shall scalp 

us all. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 91 



S&inttyJ&int in tfoe Sjja&e* 

O for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers ! 

O for an iceberg or two at control ! 
O for a vale that at mid-day the dew cumbers ! 

O for a pleasure-trip up to the pole ! 

O for a little one-story thermometer, 

With nothing but zeroes all ranged in a row ! 

O for a big double-barreled hygrometer, 

To measure the moisture that rolls from my brow ! 

O that this cold world were twenty times colder ! 

(That's irony red hot, it seemeth to me.) 
O for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder ! 

O what a comfort an ague would be ! 

O for a grotto frost-lined and rill-riven, 
Scooped in the rock under cataract vast ! 

O for a winter of discontent even ! 
O for wet blankets judiciously cast ! 



92 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

O for a soda-fount spouting up boldly 

From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky ! 

O for proud maiden to look on me coldly, 
Freezing my soul with a glance of her eye ! 

Then O for a draught from a cup of cold pizen ! 

And O for a through ticket, via Coldegrave, 
To the baths of the Styx, where a thick shadow lies on 

And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave ! 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 93 



C&e (Sate of Ceatsu 

The summer-house was old and worn, 

A Moorish roof of painted pine, 
On seven slender shafts upborne, 

Half hidden by a clambering vine, 
And half in sunlight, while the leaves 
Of two great maples flecked the floor 
With dancing shapes all shadowed o'er, 
And rustled round the broken eaves. 
It stood upon a point of land 

Far poised above a silver flood, 
And the deep gulf on either hand 
By swallow-flights alone was spanned, 

Or fleecy clouds in flying scud. 
What lovers may have whispered there 
In silences of evening air, 
What robbers at the midnight hour 
Conspired to clutch crime's bloody dower, 
What tuneless poet watched the stars, 
What hermit soul through mortal bars 
Withdrawn from every mortal care, — 



94 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

I reck not, for I see it still 

As in one dreamy afternoon 

When Summer's strength was freshly hewn, 
And Autumn's haze was on the hill. 
Then we were children — happy time ! 

For this old world seemed shining new, 
And life was but a rattling rhyme, 

And all its pretty tales were true. 
We played the old familiar games 

Until they palled upon the sense, 
And personated squires and dames, 

And knaves and knights, in grave pretence, 
Till Helen, flinging from her lap 

The autumn leaves, sprang up and cried, 
"I know a game we have not tried — 
We'll play at rinding on the map ! " 

She brought the atlas from the house, 

And spread it on the arbor floor ; 

We clustered round and conned it o'er, 
With wary eyes and thoughtful brows. 
The turn went round until it fell 

To Arthur, him of fewest years 
Among us, and he pondered well, 

Then bade us find the Gate of Tears. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 95 

What mighty travels now began — 

What voyages in unknown seas ! 

We cruised among the Cyclades, 

And visited the Cingalese, 
And lingered at the Isle of Man. 
We crossed the Himalayan slopes, 

And climbed the Mountains of the Moon ; 
We trod Peruvian bridge of ropes, 

And lowland dyke, and Danish dune ; 
We sailed the great Australian Bight, 

We basked awhile on tropic shores, 

We pulled the daring whaler's oars, 
And lost ourselves in Ar&ic night. 

On Orinoco's tangled banks 
The chattering monkeys mocked our quest ; 

And in the red man's straggling ranks 
We thrid the rivers of the West ; 
We followed up the Niger's course, 

And all the Dnieper's muddy miles, 
And where Ontario's waters force 

St. Lawrence through his Thousand Isles. 
With vague conjecture, jests, and jeers, 

We spelled out many a foreign name, 

But still were baffled by the game, 
And could not find the Gate of Tears. 



96 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

"You give it up," said Arthur — "Good ! 

But see how plain it now appears — 
A voyage through the Red Sea's flood 

Will bring you to the Gate of Tears." 
The Red Sea's flood, we knew not then, 

We've known too well in after years ; 
For time and truth have made us men- — 
Swift time, stern truths told o'er again — 

And all have found the Gate of Tears. 



O Helen of the golden hair, 

Of all thy little mates that day, 
Not one but would have borne thy care, 

Or plucked his own right eye away, 
To save those dark, deep, lustrous spheres 
Of thine from sorrow's bitter tears. 
It might not be ; for thine the lot 

Of all good women since the fall : 
One half of life beside the cot, 

The other half beside the pall — 
Presiding over birth and death, 

Our earliest and our latest breath — 
Our entrance on a life of fears, 

Our exit at the Gate of Tears. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 97 

O Father Land, of lands the best, 
O Mother Freedom, dearer still, 
What mystery moves the mighty will, 

That many days must still be dressed 

In sable weeds, and pain and loss, 

The mourner's tear, the martyr's cross, 

Appear wherever we can see 

One step advances liberty ? 

So was it when our Washington 

Thro' seven long years kept heart of hope, 
From Cambridge elm to Trenton slope, 

From Valley Forge to Yorktown's sun. 

So was it, too, when Lincoln led 
His people through the bloody years 

That Fate exacled as her price 

To shrive us of a hideous vice, — 

Then bowed his own most reverend head, 
And left us at the Gate of Tears. 

So when our third great President, 
His welcoming hand extended free, 

Was struck with murderous intent 
By treacherous tool of anarchy. 

J 3 



9 8 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

The whole world breathing prayers of hope, 
The nation quivering with its fears, 

For him the gates of triumph ope, 
For us, alas ! the Gate of Tears. 

So may it be when you and I, 

And all of us, uncertain stand, 
Compelled to cross, though fain to fly, 
The shadows of the border-land : 
With tranquil mind that knows at length 
All its own weakness, and its strength, 
Following in quiet self-control 
The light that shines from out the soul, 

The wisdom never born of years, 
That leads where clearer suns may rise, 
And show the gloomy Gate of Tears 
An outer gate of Paradise. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 99 



©n X\t 33eacf) at amaffansett* 

Give me a handful of the glittering sand 

That's rolled about by every breaking wave ; 

Sit here upon the margin of the land, 

And meet my questioning with answer brave. 

Whence and how came it to this pleasant shore ? 

" From the far north, ten thousand years ago, 
Crept down the mighty avalanche that bore 

A half- world load of rock and ice and snow. 

"And somewhere in its cold, capacious breast 
Were wrapped the deep foundations of this isle, 

Torn from the Ar&ic mountains ' frozen crest, 
And dragged a year a mile — a year a mile." 

What legend from those days could tell you this ? 

" Where Hudson perished and where Franklin failed, 
From many a broken ledge and cliff we miss 

The very rocks your sands have here impaled. 



ioo Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

"The sands themselves are but the shining grist 
Crushed from the gravel in that mighty mill, 

As, moving with remorseless roll and twist, 
The giant glacier worked its patient will." 

But how and whence that Ar£tic quarry rose ? 

"'Tis plainly written on its splintered side: 
Millions of years before, 'mid earthquake throes, 

'T was heaved aloft by some volcanic tide. 

"And there it rested, looking o'er the plain, 
Silent and solemn as the starry flocks, 

Until the circling ages in their train 

Brought round the cycle of the equinox." 

Tell me what placed it in the depths of earth. 

" Go back in thought a myriad ages more, 
And see this rolling globe of mighty girth 

Hurled from the Sun with all its mineral store. 

"Mingled and kneaded in the glowing mass 
Was all we have of rock or tree or air, 

Slowly to be evolved as changes pass, 

Fires melt, frosts crack, winds blow, and waters 
wear." 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 101 

And whence your Sun ? and whence his motive force ? 

" Sprung from a nebula that floated free. 
Rotation was the law that ruled his course, 

And all else followed by necessity." 

And whence the nebula ? How does it come 
The substance of this sand exists at all ? 

I wait for answer — and your lips are dumb. 
The march of Science leads us to a\vall. 

Change upon change, we tell the changes o'er ; 

But genesis of matter still escapes, 
And more of searching only brings us more 

Mysterious substance in familiar shapes. 

While the great riddle thus remains unsolved, 
And Science can not pass beyond its tether, 

However worlds and systems are evolved, 
The sage and simpleton must stand together. 



102 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



at jFiftp-ttuo* 

If I were Shakespeare, I should die to-day. 
If I were Lincoln, I should set my hand 
Unto the hardest task that e'er was planned 

Of complex forces and unknown assay. 

If I were Washington, the land would leap 
With gladness for a freedom newly won ; 
If Caesar, I should cross the Rubicon ; 

And if Magellan, sail the greater deep. 

Burns, Byron, Collins, Motherwell, and Praed - 
By fifteen years I have o'erpassed the time 
When poets die, without one worthy rhyme 

Or verse whose color will not surely fade. 

Seven years I am beyond the martial age ; 
But sword or banner hangs not on my wall, 
Where shadows pass, like some dim funeral 

Of valorous comrade or preceptor sage. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 103 

What Rubicons I fancied I should cross ! 

But every brook is either bridged or dry. 

There seems no more to be a call for high 
Heroic action — save in patient loss. 

I've closed no gulf that parted friend from friend, 
Nor widened any fertile stream of thought : 
My whole half century figures up to nought — 

Unless achievement be not life's sole end — 

Unless there must be for whom good's designed, 
As well as those through whom it comes to pass — 
Reflective souls, wherein, as in a glass, 

Creative thinkers meet their pictured mind. 

I am not Shakespeare — but his plays are mine. 
I am not Lincoln — but I saw that face, 
The saddest and the wisest of our race ; 

Nor Washington — but Freedom's heir in line. 

So something still of triumph there must be 
In lowly places ; and before the mast 
A man may hope that he shall come at last, 

With his great Captain, to the tranquil sea. 



104 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 



( Passages from occasional poems. ) 

THE STAGE RIDE. 

The sandy highway, fringed with green, 
By sparkling water-courses led 
Along some ancient river's bed, 

With wealth of intervale between, 

Winds upward toward the purple range, 
As journeys one in morning dream, 
And bridges many a murmuring stream, 

And revels in continual change. 

Just over there the mountains lie, 

The quiet brood of quiet sky ; 

Just over there their shadow falls. 

We wind through many a narrow deli, 
And vale whose bounds more gently swell, 

Right onward toward the rocky walls ; 

And still through this delusive air 
Their rugged sides above us bend 
And seem to mark our journey's end, 1 

Just over there, just over there. 

But lo ! the clouds, in tatters dressed, 

Come clambering o'er the mountain crest, 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 105 

And tumbling here, or settling there, 
Now buoyed a while in denser air, 
Now clinging to some rocky ledge, 

In sunlight dark, in shadow pale, 
Creep slowly down as if to wage 

An Indian warfare on the vale. 
Our leaders snuff the coming shower, 
And put forth more determined power : 
Our wheels more eager crunch the sand, 
We grasp the rail with firmer hand, 
Hold hats against the stiffening breeze, 
More nimbly dodge the drooping trees, 
Fall helpless in the ambushed jolts, 
Dream timidly of breaking bolts, 
Suspend a while the anxious breath 
Where one mis-step might hurl to death, 
Dash at the low hill's rocky face, 
Spin like a peg-top round its base, 
Go thundering through the heaving bridge, 
And roll along the causeway's ridge, — 
Till horses, driver, men, and freight 

Seem but an animated whole, 
With one quick impulse all elate, 

The thrill of one impassioned soul. 



H 



106 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

NEW AND OLD. 

New lamps for old ! — and shall we have more light 

On any mystery of our mortal days, 
Since Eighty-five has set in endless night, 

And Eighty-six has risen on our gaze 
With brighter rays ? 

New hopes for old desires, forgotten now, 
That last year often broke our nightly rest, 

Tried the whole heart, and taxed the furrowed brow, 
And sent the fancy nor' -by-south-by-west, 
On foolish quest ! 

New blossoms for dead fruit, and sweets in hive ! 

This sturdy branch of Time's perennial tree, 
Which counts its harvests up to eighty -five, 

Must bear of golden pippins two or three 
For you and me. 

New loves for hatreds dead ! Fresh faith and strong, 
For worn-out grudges and resentments old, 

For all the brood of prejudice and wrong, 
The petty spites and malice manifold 
That now are cold. 



Mor?iing Lights and Evening Shadows. 107 

New blood for watery Age ! New brawn for Youth ! 

Fresh heaps of fuel for Ambition's fires ! 
New explorations in the realms of Truth, 

New songs of genius from unheard-of lyres 
And silent choirs ! 

New friends, perhaps — but old ones none the less ! 

New passions, possibly ; for who can tell 
What shape the passing cloud will take, or guess 

What current bears him, or what tempest swell 
Bodes ill or well ? 



YOUTH AND VERSE. 

Verse is the gift of youth. The song-birds cease 
Their warblings when the springtime blossoms 
fall; 

The summers strengthen and the fruits increase 
To a more sober music ; and the tall 
Ripe grain that tosses like a plumed pall 

Nods to funereal measures, till at last 
The sickle undermines the golden wall, 

The dream of glory fades into the past, 
And through the stubble cries the shrill autumnal blast. 



108 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows, 

Youth may be pardoned for its lack of thought, 

Its careless rhymes and repetitious song ; 
It can but know the little that is taught, 

It can but guess at life — and guesses wrong. 

But in the bubbling spirit it is strong, 
That stirs and strives within the blood and brain, 

Propels the rolling world its course along, 
And drags the cautious elders in its train, 
And scales the mountain height, and dares the furious 



GREAT AND SMALL. 

Our lives are little, but our times are great. 

We come, we see, we linger, and we pass ; 
Weave but a single thread in web of state, 

Or give the field a single spear of grass. 

We are too often like a boyish class, 
Where each one stumbles through his dozen lines, 

And looks bewildered at the stubborn mass 
Of foreign words and intricate designs, — 
But lo ! when all is done, through all an Iliad shines. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 109 



CIVIL WAR. 

Hamlets unheard-of fifty miles away 

Became historic when their streets ran blood, 

And gentle streams that through the meadows play, 
With rippling song that only sang of good, 
Told henceforth to the overhanging wood 

A tale of sorrow and unending tears, 

And bore a stain that neither ebb nor flood 

Can wash away through all the coming years, 
Till Greed forget his crimes, and Sympathy her fears. 

Yet wisdom was not wanting to the tale, 

And History wrote new marvels in her age. 
She saw, one April morn, the glories pale 

Of all the naval heroes on her page. 

In single ship or battle-line they wage 
Successful warfare ; but behold at bay 

Fortress and fire-raft, hulk with chain and kedge, 
Gunboat and ram, all blazing in the fray, 
And all by our great sailor conquered in a day. 

In ancient times the spirits of the slain 
Were said to fight again in upper air, 



i i o Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

While still their comrades struggled on the plain 
Or rose in ghostly ranks to join them there. 
But in our western Alleghanies, where 

The Chattanooga through its valley goes, 
An army clambered up the mountain stair, 

Plunged into clouds, and then beyond them rose, 
And crossed the yellow Moon, pursuing still their foes. 

There was one Marathon in Greece of old ; 

There is one Waterloo in Belgium now ; 
And yonder, nestled in a gentle fold 

Of the Blue Ridge, along a hillock's brow, 

Lies a great field whereon the reverent plow 
Follows the selfsame lines that once it drew ; 

For there three thousand patriots sealed their vow 
To be to freedom and their country true, 
And made of Gettysburg a three-days' Waterloo. 

There, as it should be when a people rise 

In the true majesty of final law, 
Was little of the ta&ics of the wise 

Or brilliant general, neither did it draw 

From accident or from opponent's flaw 
The great result. No whirl of Fortune's wheel 

Determined who the bitter leek should gnaw. 



Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 1 1 1 

The brains were with the hands that held the steel, 
And stubborn will prevailed against a fiery zeal. 

From such, of such, for such, a great man rose, 
Amid the rudeness of the wondrous West, 

And carried all the burden of our woes 

With gentle words and sympathetic breast, 
And ever edged his wisdom with a jest, 

While deepened still the lines that care had worn, 
His finger on the people's pulses pressed, 

Until the burden and the heat were borne, 
Then vanished like a dream, — and we forever mourn. 



A FA RE JV ELL. 

Once to these college halls I bade farewell, 

And twice returned to read a simple measure, 
To tickle fancy with the rhythmic spell 

That gives an equal glow to dross and treasure ; 

And now a third attempt, by your good pleasure. 
Be this the last. And let some younger voice 

Hereafter wile away your evening's leisure 
With graceful art on themes of lighter choice, 
That sadden less the ear and more the heart rejoice. 



i 1 2 Morning Lights and Evening Shadows. 

For I have dwelt so many years afar 

From this the scene of youth's delicious days, 

And turned so often to the evening star 

That dropped on you the plummet of its rays, 
And felt the rush, the swirl, the swift amaze, 

As day chased day in ever hastening flight, — 
I could but trace again the earlier ways, 

And speak once more the feelings, true but trite, 
Of one who knows full well 'tis time to say Good 
night ! 

A drowsy infant when your story's done — 
A schoolboy tinkering at his broken skate — 

A youth who sees the final dance begun — 
A lover leaning o'er a garden gate — 
A maiden listening for the word of fate- — 

A soldier thinking of to-morrow's fight — 
A statesman conscious of expiring date — 

A watcher doubtful of the morning light, — 
I understand them all : they hate to say Good night ! 



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